The Design Block

If you're looking for the latest in advertising and marketing, design related technology and lifestyle tips, and art or design highlights then you're in the right place. Find all this and more with the Design Block blog.

Apparently, the idea of getting free pizza in Russia is a powerful promotion. In fact, it turned out to be so powerful that Domino’s Pizza had to end their promotion as quickly as it began. Domino’s had offered free pizza for life to anyone who got…

Online dating is at an all-time high. In fact, it’s quickly turned into a billion-dollar industry. And according to at least one poll, it’s the second most common way to find a significant other. But what if you want to know more details about your…

It’s a common problem with having your photo taken: your smile is wide but your eyes shut just as the flash goes off. Not to worry, though. Facebook’s new AI can now open your eyes in photos where they’re closed.

Burger King Russia sparked outrage with an appalling ad campaign posted on their official social media account. The promotion promised a reward of 3 million Rubles (CDN$62,715) and a lifetime supply of Whoppers for any Russian woman impregnated by a World Cup player.

They say that great artists steal, while poor artists borrow; and this often leads to accusations of plagiarism. In fact, companies have been caught on several occasions plagiarizing other artists work for their own gains.

When a company is looking to hire you to their team, they often vet you online first. During this cyber investigation, your LinkedIn profile will typically show up in the first three to five results. You now have the opportunity to control what they find about…

It used to be that if you wanted to take photos when you went on vacation you had to carry around a clunky camera. Now, with cameras on every smartphone, people can take photos easier; and people love to take photos. In fact, the advent…

Facebook wants you to know about and control the photos of you that people upload—even if they don’t tag you. Much like the social media company wanting you to upload your nudes, the purpose of this update is to protect users’ privacy.

The easy answer is that the best times to post on social media are when the people you want to see the content are on the network. However, each social network has its own best practice. Data from 16 studies proves that posting at the best times will help…

It’s easy to dismiss emojis; silly faces and undefined symbols that are a language on their own and only for teenagers. However, it’s important to know that many written symbols from today date back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Emojis transcend borders, languages and technology. And the emoji language is…

If you’ve been avoiding Snapchat, whether personally or professionally, it’s time to start paying attention. It’s a mobile phenomenon which enjoys 100 million users daily, watching 10 billion videos each day. When Snapchat Spectacles were first released, they only seemed to be a playful extension of the…

What if you took renaissance artworks from the 14th to 17th centuries and showed how they would appear in modern day. Well that’s what Karachi-based creative agency Serial Kolor has done with a tongue-in-cheek series. They’ve reimagined old paintings as cheeky Instagram posts.

Social media is full of sad, lonely people pretending they are okay and perfectly fine attention-seekers pretending to be sad. Instagram photos are the most deceptive when it comes to faking our lives.

Have you ever scrolled through your list of Facebook friends and realized you don’t recognize half the names popping up in your News Feed? If that’s the case, I’d like to wish you a happy National Unfriend Day!

From beautifully prepared food to inspirational sunsets, travellers are passionate about documenting the world around them using Instagram. But have you ever wondered which are the most Instagrammed destinations?

The longer social networks exist, the more they learn what their users want; they modify, update, and increase their capabilities to keep users interested. Sometimes, however, older options become hidden features, or harder to find forgotten ones.

Regardless of whether you’re a digital marketer or just a blogger, managing comments on social media is part of the job. Eventually, every social media manager has to go through the dreaded negative social media comments.

Emojis have become part of today’s written language. They’re used to show off our emotions and expressions in a way that’s easier than words alone. In fact, 92 percent of the online community use emojis. But they don’t express enough when it comes to advertising…

Facebook has over a billion users and people still find things about to complain about. And I’m not just talking about trolls sharing their personal opinions; I’m talking about the user interface for the social media platform.

Emojipedia has recently announced a host of new emojis for Windows 10. Most notably is that of the Middle Finger emoji. Also referred to as the Reversed Hand With Middle Finger Extended emoji, it comes in a range of diverse skin tones for users to choose from.

Downloading apps onto your smartphone can be incredibly addictive. Every Android or iOS user has their favourite apps, such as a beloved social networking app or an entertaining, time-killing game. With the thousands upon thousands of popular apps available to download, do you know what any…

Okay, so you’ve created a killer blog article. You posted a painfully funny image or video. You put so much work into your awesome content that you expect it to go viral as soon as it hits the Internet. And no one cares.

Did you know that photo you took with your phone can reveal the exact location of where it was taken? And every time you fill in a profile, blog, share a video, send a tweet, or post a comment, you create a digital footprint that’s both…

If you’re regularly on social media, you certainly get a good dose of the usual hipster motivational posters posted on Facebook, Tumblr or Instagram. The pattern used to create these trivial posters is always the same: a heavy processed or filtered photo, with a motivational sentence placed somewhere…

Daniel Swanick has been working as both a freelance and in-house Art Director / Senior Graphic Designer in the Greater Toronto Area for over ten years. He looks at every project from both a creative and strategic point-of-view to deliver engaging, conceptually driven ideas.